GTA Shorts I Myths
by jks11235813
Summary: A series of short stories about the myths of GTA San Andreas. Not all the myths are real, and some I just created myself.
1. 1 I Saw Leatherface

**Quick note:** after reading my reviews, I would like to say something before you start reading this.

_Please, don't be mean on your reviews, because nobody is perfect and this is a FAN site. If I were a professional writer, I would be selling books, not writing on the internet (I'm not talking to anybody in particular)_

_My first language is portuguese and I've written this story some time ago, so there are stupid mistakes all over it, and I apologize for that. I'll try to be more careful in the future._

_If you are going to review it, say something or good or constructive. Please don't waster your time saying my story sucked completely._

GTA Shorts I

1. I Saw Leatherface

Dan was sitting at the far corner of the bar in Blueberry, holding a bottle of beer and trying not to listen to the crappy song the radio was playing. His day hadn't been the best and all he needed was to take a break from it, so he headed to that bar one hour earlier and just sat there and drank. There were some attractive women at the bar giving him looks, but he didn't think about them, they were just country whores.

Dan was gazing emptily the front seat, thinking about life, when a guy stormed into the bar, screaming. He had a huge beard and he wore dirty clothes, madness showed in his eyes as he yelled: "I saw him."

The bar went silent and even the barman turned off the radio. Everybody's gaze was on that single man standing on the front door.

"I saw him. The killer of The Panopticon" the man yelled again. "He had the demon in his eyes while chasing me with that chainsaw…"

He made a dramatic pause then continued talking.

"You may not believe me, but I should warn you now that the mountains hide more secrets than you could imagine. Don't let your children out past nine and make sure every door is locked, because we cannot know when the killer's gonna strike again."

He started walking around the bar as he went on with his speech. Dan could see some people whispering to each other and some even laughing at the guy, but Dan seemed to be interesting in his story, so he dropped off the beer and started paying attention.

"I was walking the main road of the coast, going up the hill to the deserted area of The Panopticon, thinking I would be safe up there, but it was late night and there were no cars around me. I thought of going back, but it was dark and I was tired. I had only the left option of staying there."

"Completely unaware of the danger surrounding me, I laid my body against one of the wood piles, trying to find a comfort position to sleep. Everything was dark and silent, the only sound I could hear was the sound of my breath… And then, like the sound of an engine started, I heard the maniac trying to start his chainsaw. He was close to me, I could hear it clearly in my ear. And he _knew_ I was there too, in a matter of seconds I would have a chainsaw through my stomach."

"Desperate I started running downhill, running like I'd never run, just about to save my life. I could hear the chainsaw chasing me, and when it felt like we were safely far from each I turned around to face him, and what I saw was the face of the devil."

"His face was creepily deformed with pieces of other skins stitched to his own skin. His eyes popped out of dark, red and demoniac. He was no longer running, he was just standing there holding his chainsaw. I had stopped either, frozen by the terrible image that had invaded my brains. And like a flash of a camera he was gone, transformed into dust and carried away by the wind. He and his chainsaw, disappearing through the woods, and I know it now: I will never see Leatherface again."

Epilogue

Some guys at the corner starting clapping their hands, mocking the man. The women started laughing and some started booing the man. Dan was sitting quietly in his corner, watching the man being humiliated by the disbelievers, but one thing was right: they will never see Leatherface again.


	2. 2 The Ghost of Mount Chilliad

2. The Ghost of Mount Chilliad

His cell phone started to ring, so he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it. It was James.

"Hey, man, are you doing anything this night?" he asked him.

"No."

"So would you like to come with us to spend a night at the top of Mount Chilliad?"

Dan rolled his eyes.

"Who's going?"

"Me, Hutch and Claire. And we're trying to convince you and Amanda."

Dan thought about it for a second.

"Alright" he wasn't doing anything at night, really.

"Okay, man, we're gonna meet at the bar in Angel Pine at six p.m., bring your barrack and food. We're going with Hutch's truck."

"Okay, bye, James."

"Bye."

_Six p.m. that same day._

Dan parks his car one block away from the bar, then walks to it. He recognizes James and Claire's cars, so they must be in.

In the bar they four of them are sitting at a far table, drinking beer. There's an empty chair, which Dan sits after greeting everybody.

"So, is everybody coming?" he asked.

"Yes" there's a collective response.

"James _made_ me come" Amanda said.

"No, I didn't. You came here by yourself."

Dan laughed.

"Come on, Amanda, it's just another ghost hunt. Everybody knows there's no such thing as the Mount Chilliad ghost, or bigfoot, or…" she said.

"Wait, wait, wait. Ghost hunt?" he interrupted Claire.

"Yes. Didn't James tell you?" they both looked at James.

"I know that if I had said it you wouldn't come!" James explained.

Dan shook his shoulders.

"I'm already here, anyway… But you should have mentioned this ghost hunting."

"Why, are you scared?" Claire mocked him.

"No, I'm not scared. But I could have come more prepared."

"Unless you have a ghost hunting kit at home, you couldn't have come more prepared" Hutch said. Dan decided to stay quiet.

In thirty minutes they finished their beers, paid the bill and headed outside to Hutch's truck. Dan put his things on the back and they all squeezed in the back seat while Hutch drove and Amanda sat on the passenger's seat.

They took the main road till they found a dust trail that went up the mount. They were really loud during the way, James started telling joked and everybody laughed, then Hutch joined him, making the car even louder.

They reached the top of the mount around seven and a half and it was already dark outside. The barracks were armed around a plain area and the truck was parked a few feet away. The guys started a fire with some wood and they all sat around it.

"So, what did you guys bring to eat?" Amanda asked.

"Hamburgers, chips, marshmallows… Here" he threw a bag full of food.

"That's nasty" Claire said.

"We couldn't bring steaks."

They all laughed.

Around eleven p.m., after having eaten all that junky food with beer and soda, they went to their barracks to sleep. Dan laid comfortably in his own barrack and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds out there, the sound of the wind on the leaves and the night animals. He was about to sleep when he heard an unusual sound, at least for a place surrounded by the wood.

He started to hear the sound of a piano, a sad song he never heard before been played far in the woods, the sound carried away by the wind.

A little scared, he continued to listen to the song. He remembered James joking about their hunt to the ghost of Mount Chilliad, but he knew James was just kidding. There were no such things as ghosts…

The music wouldn't stop. That dramatic piano somewhere out there was still playing the same sad song as it seemed to cry about something. Dan started to feel annoyed so he put his head out his barrack, trying to see something.

The rests of the bonfire were still burning, leaving a very dim light in the middle of the dark. Dan's barrack was the one at the end of a semicircle, so he turned his head right to see if there was someone else still awake, and there was.

Claire's head was out the barrack just like his, and she was looking around, searching for something. When she found him she asked:

"Do you hear this?"

"A piano?"

"Yes! Do you hear it too?"

"Yeah. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know, maybe James's trying to scare us."

There was movement inside Hutch's barrack and then seconds later he was out of his barrack too.

"What are you two talking about?" he asked.

"Are you hearing a piano somewhere?"

"What's going on?" Amanda showed up in front of her barrack.

"Oh my God…" Dan whispered.

"Do you guys hear a piano?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I heard it" Amanda answered, "but I thought I was just imagining it… Did you guys hear it too?"

"Yes."

"I do too" Hutch said.

Dan got off of this barrack and stood in front of it. The others did the same. When they were all out and standing next to the bonfire James showed up with a sleepy face.

"Guys, what's going on?"

"Aren't you hearing the piano?"

"I'm not hearing anything… You guys are just screwing with me…"

"No, we aren't" Amanda said. "Unless you are screwing with us, someone is playing a piano out there."

"I don't hear anything."

"Pay attention" Claire said, impatient.

Everybody got quiet and tried to listen to the strange piano song that now seemed to come from the highest spot of the mount. Dan could hear clearly every note of the song, it was pretty simple but still enough to creep him out.

"Guys, this is not funny!" James said when he finally heard the piano.

"It's not us. We're scare too."

"What do you think it is?" Hutch asked.

"A piano" James wisely answered. Claire rolled her eyes and Amanda laughed.

"Man…"

"I'm not gonna sleep with this thing" Amanda said.

"But what is doing it?"

"How could there be a piano up here? And who the hell would be playing a piano on the top of a mount this hour???"

"Guys…" Dan called."

"Maybe someone is trying to play a prank on us."

"Who?"

"Guys."

"I don't wanna stay here anymore" Amanda was starting to get apprehensive.

"Guys!" Dan had to slightly raise his voice to make them pay attention.

"What?"

"I'm not kidding now. What is that?"

He pointed the dim blue light coming from a spot on up the mount. It didn't seem to come from anywhere else, it was a light that had suddenly appeared there.

"It's the ghost of Mount Chilliad" James joked.

"Stop it! It's not funny!" Amanda grumbled, hitting James with her fist.

"Let's take a look" Hutch said.

"Are you f***ing crazy?" James asked. "That thing is coming from nowhere and it's playing a freaking piano! Do you really wanna get closer and see what it is???"

"Maybe it's nothing."

"It can't be f***ing nothing, man!"

"Then you'd rather stay here and just expect it will go away?" Hutch raised his voice.

"Maybe it will! Let's go back to the tents."

"No" now Claired had stepped into the arguing. "I wanna know what it is. If you want to stay, then stay. I'm going with Hutch."

"Me too" Dan agreed.

"I don't wanna go" Amanda said.

"You two stay here, then" Hutch said, and then the three of them started walking towards the light. James and Amanda were left behind, but it didn't last five seconds, they were running back to them, so the all five started heading towards that weird dim light.

The ground started get more irregular and it was difficult to walk, so they had to take another path which was plainer. Nobody dared to talk while they went up, each one just imagining in their heads what that light and the piano sound could be. Dan didn't really know what to think, there were no reasonable explanations to the phenomenon and the ghost thing was starting to seem plausible for him.

"Did you notice the piano sound gets louder when we get closer?" Amanda said. She held Hutch's hand and Dan could see she was shivering.

"Don't think about it, Amanda" James said.

While they got closer and closer the light started to transform itself into something more than just a flash of light. Dan couldn't believe his eyes, but the light was changing into the image of a little girl sitting by a piano, playing that creepy song they were hearing. The girl and the piano were made by that blue light they'd seen.

"Oh my God…" Dan heard Claire whisper next to him.

"What the f*** is that?" James said, his voice trembling.

They stopped about ten feet away from the ghost, not daring to give one step closer. They had frozen with the sight of the ghost, nobody said a word and the music continued to ring in their ears, till the girl finally stopped playing.

"Oh my God…" Claire repeated in his ear.

"What the…" James started, but then he went silent.

The girl had left the piano behind and was walking towards them, but she stopped half the way. Though she was just a light, Dan could clearly see she was a little girl and she wore a long dress and her hair went down to her shoulders. She had creepy deep eyes that stared at them, stopping at each face to take a more detailed look. They seemed to be hypnotized by the little girl, all of their gazes centered in that weird figure.

Time seemed to have stopped for them, but then the little girl started to move. No, she wasn't moving, she was _changing_…

Dan's heart was almost jumping out of his mouth while he saw the little ghost turn into a repulsive creature. Its eyes turned black and stretched out; her hair fell leaving just a few behind and her body started to contort. Her arms were now turned back as her head and legs, and while it did that she fell down to the ground and started to drag itself towards them, that strange ghostly figure. They had frozen there and were too scared to move a muscle, but then the creature let out a scream that was so loud it could break a glass if there was one there.

That made all of them come back to their senses and start to run down the hill like crazy. Dan and Claire were the first ones, Hutch was right behind them and farther there were James and Amanda helping each other through the irregular path. Dan turned around, the ghost was going after them and it was very close to James and Amanda. They weren't gonna make it…

"James!" Dan yelled to them and was about to go back to help when he felt a hand grab his arm.

"Come on, we don't have time" Claire said to him, dragging him with her.

"They're gonna die!" Dan shouted back at her.

"Yes! And do you wanna die too? Now _let's go!_"

Taking one last look at his friends, Dan then turned around and continued to run down the hill, Claire leading him. They ran through the plane area where they had settled the barracks and were almost entering the woods when Dan turned around again.

James and Amanda had rolled downhill and were lying there, covered with dust and leaves and hurt. Hutch was trying to help them, but the monster seemed to have disappeared. There was no more blue light that looked like a deformed child; there was no more piano song, just the terrible screams coming from Amanda.

"_Let's go!_" Claire yelled behind him.

"Where's the ghost? Claire, it's gone!" Claire looked over his shoulder.

"Oh my God, Dan! Then why are they screaming so much?"

"I don't know! Let's see what happened!"

Claire and Dan started running towards the group, but they had all stood up and were running like hell in the other direction.

"Go! Go! Go!" James shouted at them.

"Guys, there's no ghost!" Claire shouted back.

"No ghost! Turn around!"

They were all confused, but Hutch understood what they were saying and turned around. James and Amanda noticed what he did and turned around too. They were surprised.

"Where is it?" James asked when Claire and Dan got closer to them.

"It disappeared" Dan said.

"It can't be. It… it was just behind us…" Amanda told them.

"Did you see where it went?"

"No, we were running, but when we turned around it was gone."

"It can't be! It wouldn't just disappear like that! It's still out there…"

"Amanda, calm down" James wrapped his arms around her shivering body.

"Do you wanna take a look around?" Dan asked Hutch.

"Sure…"

"What? Are you crazy?" Claire interrupted. "Now that we got rid of it you two want to go after it again? No, guys, let's pack our stuff and go. Unless you all want to die here."

Hutch and Dan looked at each other. Claire was right, there was no point going after it again.

"Hurry up, let's pack all this stuff."

They went back to the barracks and started to pick up everything, from clothes to food, throwing everything on the back of the truck, as fast as they could, every time looking around trying to find any trace of a blue light like the one they had just seen.

"Let's go" Hutch said when they had it all packed and the only thing left there was the bonfire.

Everybody got in and they drove back to Angel Pine. Amanda and James fell asleep on the way, and Dan would've too if he weren't so intrigued by what had just happened. Claire was next to him and he noticed she was very awake too.

"Can't sleep?" he whispered in her left ear.

"No."

"Me too."

After a few seconds she said:

"What do you think that was?"

"Have no idea. It was a ghost, but I never believed in ghosts."

"Neither did I. What do you think it would've happened if we hadn't gone up there?"

"Do you mean after the ghost?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. Maybe we could wake up all dead or nothing would happen at all."

"What do you think it would've happened if we hadn't run away?"

"That ghost is nothing like I've ever known of. Don't know that either."

The car was silent for a second.

"Can I stay at your place tonight?" she asked.

"Why?"

"I don't know, I just don't feel like being alone tonight."

"Okay, you can stay."

Claire and Dan or anybody else talking during the way, and by the time they reached the road they were pretty much all asleep except for Hutch and Dan, who tried to sleep but just couldn't. His thoughts always came back to the image of the ghost chasing them, and he knew he would never forget that.


	3. 3 Deep In The Woods I

3. Deep In The Woods

_"We have a call of a woman from Angel Pine saying she found a man's body in the woods of Shady Creeks. The units 6 and 8 are being requested."_

Claire put down her coffee and called Jason from across the room. She told him about the most recent call and they both headed to Angel Pine to check on the body found near Shady Creeks. While they drove they got information from the 911.

_"The woman says the body is on the very beginning of the dust road that leaves Angel Pine into Shady Creeks […]."_

Claire parked the police car on the side of the dust road and then she and Jason followed it till they found a woman next to the body of man near some rocks.

"Good evening, Ms. Wood, my name is Claire Wright and this is Jason Rock, my partner. We're here because we got a call from you at the 911."

The woman was older than Claire, nearly forties, and she seemed pretty shaken by the sight of the dead man. Claire started asking her questions about it while Jason took a look at the body.

"Around what time did you find it?"

"About fifteen minutes ago, when I realized what it was I immediately called 911."

"May I ask you how did you find it?"

"Well, I was taking a walk around here when I got back from work. I wanted to go further, but when I found the body I just waited here."

"It's pretty dangerous to walk around this hour in the woods, Ms. Wood."

"Yes, yes, I know, but I've been doing this quite often and I've never seen something like this."

"Well, I hope you change your mind now. Maybe a few minutes of difference and it could've been you."

"I know…"

"Did you see anyone suspected around here?"

"No, everybody seems just normal to me."

"Okay, Ms. Wood, we're gonna take a look at it and then we're gonna send you home."

"Alright."

Jason was kneeling next to the body, wearing his gloves.

"So, what did you find?"

"Oh, you're gonna like this" he said.

The man's body was facing down and there was so much blood around it that it was hard to find anything specific. Jason rolled the man with Claire's help so it would be facing up.

The man's shirt was completely red with the blood and all torn apart, showing deep bruises on the man's flesh.

"It seems like an animal did this."

"I know. But we haven't had reports on animal attacks around this area for over a year."

"Yeah… Well, there's a first time for everything. Maybe it's coyote that ran away from Red County."

"I'm gonna check on that."

"Okay, I'll ask them to send the team."

"Okay."

Thirty minutes later the body was being removed to the morgue in San Fierro and there was a full team of detectives surrounding the scene, taking pictures and collecting evidence. Claire and Jason were standing by the car, she had her arms crossed in front of her body and she was thinking. The detectives were almost finished and they would be sent back to the station.

There wasn't much to think about in this case, it had clearly been just another wild animal from the woods of Shady Creeks. The guy was probably unaware of the danger and just wasn't paying enough attention. That was pretty boring, Claire wished she had more action in the department. Sometimes she thought about going back to Las Venturas, where the real business happened.

"Claire, take a look at this" Jason said, then threw a folder on her desk.

"What is it?"

"It's the doctor's report on the body we found last night."

"It's out already?"

"Y'know, the department's been pretty dead those months, he hadn't much work to do."

"Alright, let's take a look…"

Claire started reading, making casual comments to Jason who had sat on the chair next to hers.

"It doesn't match to any known animal?" she said, shocked.

"Yep. It wasn't a coyote, it was something else."

"Something else?"

"Unknown."

"That can't be right.

Claire entered the morgue with Jason behind her holding the folder with the report. The doctor was standing at the far corner, leaning against the counter with a piece of paper in his hands.

"Oh, hello" he greeted when he saw them.

"Good afternoon, doctor Conery. How's it been?"

"Good, good. _Dead_, pretty much."

"Yeah, I know. So, I came here to talk to you about the report on the body found in the woods yesterday."

"Yes?"

"Are you sure the bruises don't match any kind of animal?"

"Not that I know. They are bigger than a bear and deeper, too. Some even left scars on the organs; I've never seen such thing."

"I understand. Anything else out of ordinary?"

"Not that I noticed. Obviously the death cause was the loss of blood and the damage on the organs. Other than that, the body didn't have anything else unusual."

"Would you mind if I took a look at the body?"

"Go ahead."

The doctor went to one of the big drawers and pulled it out, showing the body of the man with the big scars on the chest and arms.

"Did you find out who it is?"

"No" Jason answered. "There was no id, no one recognizes him…"

"Perhaps just another farmer wandering around at the wrong time?"

"Maybe."

Claire was bending over the body, taking a closer look on those bruises. They were really unusual to her, bigger than any animal she had ever seen.

"Well, I think that's it. Thank you, Jim" she said to the doctor.

"Sure, come back any time you want or call me on the cell phone if you need."

"Of course."

Claire and Jason left the morgue.

"What do you think?" Jason asked.

"I'm out of ideas" she answered.

"Really?" he raised his eyebrows.

"Yes. If the doctor doesn't know what it is, then I don't know it either."

They were quiet a moment.

"Claire…"

"What?"

"I know it may sound crazy, but I was reading something on a website one day, and I think you should take a look at it."

"Can you send me the link?"

"We can check it right now."

Jason sat in front of a computer in the research room and Claire bent over his shoulder to see the screen. He accessed a website and showed to her.

The website was pretty simple, with a few links and writings. Jason clicked on one of them, and then a huge text appeared on the screen.

"Bigfoot?" Claire asked.

"Yes."

"Come on, Jason. Right here in San Andreas?"

"It could be."

"We don't even know if it's real, it's just a myth."

"Well, do you have other ideas?"

"Good enough? No. Better than Bigfoot? Of course."

"Okay, why don't you tell me one of them?"

Claire rolled her eyes.

"Maybe it's just an uncommon animal brought from Africa or China, I don't know, you know how the triads and the mafia are into those things."

"Alright, we can gather info on that, but if we don't find anything, we're gonna have to go with Bigfoot."

"Okay…"

Around seven p.m. Claire was still in front of the computer and with the telephone next to her, waiting for a call from a special guy. Jason was out and as usual, the department was pretty much dead. The cops and detectives were drinking a lot of coffee and talking while they didn't have anything to do. Many times one of them stopped by her desk to ask her what she was doing, and some of them would even smile at her because she was the only one doing "work". They were just a bunch of lazy asses.

One of her friends stopped by her desk and gave her a note from the 911. The note said there had been another call from Angel Pine that exemplified the same situation of the dead body neat Shady Creeks. She and Jason should be there now.

In her car, taking off to Angel Pine, she called Jason and told him to be there too.

Now they were even deeper in the woods, in Shady Creeks, near the pond. There was a pickup truck parked next to the cabin and a man and a woman were standing outside. She seemed very disturbed and he tried to calm her down.

"Excuse me" Claire called when she got off the police car. "My name is Claire Wright and I received your call from the 911."

"Hi" the girl pointed her shaking hand to Claire, who shook it.

"Where is the body?" she asked them.

The girl just pointed down the pond and the man told her to come with him.

There was a body of a young woman lying among the rocks and plants on the ground and the area around her was covered in dark blood. Taking a closer look Claire noticed there was a blood trail that went towards some rocks, and it could be dark, but Claire saw there was a big amount of blood on there too.

"Man…" she said to herself.

"Do… do you know what did this?" the guy asked her.

"We don't know yet, we're investigating it. There was another victims a few nights ago, so you shouldn't come back here till we found what killed these people."

"Sure, sure… We hadn't heard about the other body, we didn't know this was happening."

"Well, you know now. Let me ask you a few questions…"

Thirty minutes later the police was all around, closing the area and sending messages to make announcements on television and radio so people wouldn't risk themselves by going back there. Jason was there and also the head of the police department of San Fierro and the sheriff of Angel Pine were there too, and they were all taking near the parked police cars while the detectives collected the evidences and the doctor examined the body so he could send it back to the morgue.

"Maybe we should send a team after this creature" the sheriff said.

"I think Jason and I can handle it" Claire said.

"It's too dangerous, Claire" her boss told her.

"There's nothing alive a few bullets on the head can't kill."

"We don't know what we're dealing with here, Claire. Let's send a professional team."

"It can't be bigger than a bear."

"We've seen the damages it's done, we can't take risks now."

"You won't be risking anything, we can take care of ourselves. Once we find it we will kill it and…"

"What if it's a rare species?" the sheriff interrupted. They all looked at him. "I mean… you shouldn't go out shooting animals like that, maybe it's a new species or something and the scientists would like to take a look…"

"Yeah, I heard the big guys of Las Venturas are into the traffic of rare species too. Maybe one of them escaped to Shady Creeks."

"I hardly doubt it, sir" Jason said. "The mafia pays a lot of attention to the animals traffic, a monster like this one wouldn't just escape and end up in Shady Creeks. You should not worry, sir, Claire and I will be alright."

Her boss looked from Jason's face to Claire's, finally saying:

"Alright, I trust you two. Be very careful and don't forget to take a lot of ammo, okay?"

"Don't worry, chief. Let's go."

Claire and Jason prepared their guns and left the group behind. It would take too long to have a team in Shady Creeks, it was easier to just search the area by themselves.

With the guns always pointing up and flash lights on all the time, Claire and Jason moved north, searching the area carefully for anything unusual among the woods. They covered the whole north part and the south without finding a thing. Sometimes they found blood spots on the ground and on the trees, but nothing helpful. It was past eleven p.m. and they were resting near the little wooden bridge that connected Back'o'Beyond and Shady Creeks. Claire was sitting on the ground, lying on a tree while Jason sat in front of her, lying on another tree.

"So, what do you wanna do? We didn't find anything."

"We didn't search it all."

Claire stood up and helped Jason stand up too.

"What do you mean?"

"We could search Back'o'Beyond."

Jason looked at her in disbelief.

"No" he said.

"Why not?"

"Claire, Back'o'Beyond is _huge_."

"We don't have to cover it all tonight."

"Claire, come on…"

"Hey, I've been thinking all the way, okay? About what you said… what if it _is_ the Bigfoot? Huh? What if we find the animal nobody's ever seen but everybody's always heard of? Maybe we can become famous…"

"You aren't gonna trick me into this. Forg…"

Before Jason could finish the sentence the sound of footsteps were heard near them. Claire picked up her gun and pointed to the woods, not seeing a thing. She saw Jason pulling out his flashlight, but Claire told him not to. Whatever it was it would be attracted by the light.

The turned their back to each and pointed their guns each one to one direction, searching for any signs of movement around the trees, but nothing seemed to be moving. They could only hear the sound of steps coming closer.

"Where do you think it's coming from?" Claire whispered to Jason, pointed her gun to the dark.

"I don't know, it seems to be coming from everywhere…"

A huge piece of wood was thrown towards them, missing them by little. Jason and Claire threw themselves to the left, falling on the ground and hurting themselves. A roar was heard near them, but it was nothing like they've ever heard before. It sounded like a mix of animal and human in one single sound, and it was enough to make Claire's heartbeat go faster.

"What the f*** was that?" she yelled at Jason.

"I don't know!" he yelled back, but his voice was covered by another roar of that beast.

"Jason, let's run to the bridge… We can see better down there."

"Okay."

Checking every direction but not seeing anything, they threw themselves down the hill to the little bridge that connected the two areas. Since there weren't too many trees around there, the moonlight could come in and they could see better. They ran like hell till they reached the bridge, looking back to the woods with the flashlights, but nothing was moving there.

"Where did it go?" Claire asked.

"I don't know."

"What do you think it was?"

"Bigfoot?"

She looked at him, like he was kidding. Jason raised his eyebrows, indicating "maybe".

They heard footsteps again coming from the woods in from of them, but the flashlights didn't find anything, but then a black creature started running towards them, coming out of nowhere. It was as big as a bear, but somehow it looked stronger and wilder. Its eyes were yellow and it ran almost like a real person, maybe half-way from a monkey to a human being. It was definitely nothing like Claire's ever seen before and it was coming towards them.

They ran away from the beast entering the woods of Back'o'Beyond. The trees were closer and it was harder to walk around. Claire could see the light from Jason's flashlight bouncing up and down as he ran away from the animal. She didn't have time to look, she just ran and ran till she ended up in a small clearing, but Jason wasn't with her.

"Jason!" she yelled to the woods. Everything was quiet. "Jason! Where are you?"

"Claire! AAAAAHHHH!!!"

Claire ran towards the sound of his voice, screaming his name, but now he was screaming with terror and pain. Something was happening; she needed to get there fast enough.

"Jason! Jason!"

She got to another clearing, a much bigger one, but she didn't like what she saw.

In the middle of the clearing was a pool of blood, a _huge_ pool of blood and a trail that went through the woods. Jason was still screaming in pain, and it came from the where the trail led to.

Claire entered the woods again, following the sound of his voice and the blood trail, going as fast as she could, but before she got there she knew it was too late.

There was a small cave in a rock and the blood trail went in. The screams had stopped, and that was nothing good. She slowly approached the opening on the rock and she could hear the sound of teeth and flesh being torn apart. Her stomach was almost coming out of her throat and she felt like puking, but she held it to herself. With her gun pointing up and her flashlight on, she entered the cave, inch by inch as the sound of the beast feeding itself became stronger. She kept walking till her flashlight found something in the dark.

That horrible black beast was sitting on the ground of the cave with a piece of meat in her hands and blood on the floor around it. She gave the piece of meat huge bites, taking away all the flesh and leaving just the bones. A closer look made Claire conclude that it was a piece of Jason's leg, and next to it, on the floor, there was the rest of Jason's body, now transformed into a big piece of flesh and blood and bones just thrown like any other piece of meat.

As much disgusted as she could be, Claire raised her gun and shot three times, hitting the head of the monster. Blood came out of the wounds and it mixed with the pool of Jason's blood, but Claire made sure to shoot twice again. The creature fell to the left and didn't move anymore. She didn't want to get closer, she was already sick enough.

Claire picked up her cell phone and dialed her boss's number.

"Claire?"

"Chief… I'm sorry… Come… Quick…"

"What happened, Claire?"

"Jason's… dead."

"Oh my God, Claire, I…"

"I know, I know, you warned us. It was my entire fault, but, please, come quick… I can't stay here anymore."

"Okay, I'm sending a team right now. Where are you?"

"Beyond Shady Creeks. There's a cave in a rock south Back'o'Beyond. It's where the creature used to stay."

"Did you kill it?"

"Yes. Five bullets on the head."

"Alright, Claire, stay there. We're gonna be there in a minute."

He hung up, leaving Claire all alone with the remaining pieces of the beast and her friend. It was her fault, _her fault…_

Claire lay against the wall of the cave and fell down, resting her head on her hands. It had been _all her fault!_ If she hadn't pressed the boss to let them go, Jason probably wouldn't be dead by now…

Feeling the soft breeze that came through the entry of the cave, Claire closed her eyes and prayed for the first time since she was just a kid. She prayed for Jason's soul and for the other's souls too. And there, alone in the middle of the woods, with the weight of guilt on her back, she fell asleep.

Note: This isn't a creepy story, but I decided to write it anyway. I'm gonna write "Deep in the Woods II" later, and it's also gonna be about bigfoot, but in a scarier way (I hope).


	4. 4 Secrets From The Desert I

4. Secrets From The Desert

The man pulled her out of the back of the pickup and threw her on the floor. The dust got into her nose and eyes but she couldn't dust it off because her hands were tightened to her back with scotch tape. She was crying but the sound was muffled by the other scotch tape on her mouth.

The man started to drag her around the sand, pulling her by her hair, which hurt a lot. Her skin was burning with the sand and her eyes were red already, but the man had no mercy on her. He was a sick person. Just _sick_.

There was a small wooden house a few feet away and beyond that she could see the ocean. They should be somewhere north in Bone County, away from any kind of civilization. Katie could hear her heartbeat so loud in her chest that she was afraid the man could hear it. That was one situation she ever felt scared in her life.

He dragged her to that house, opened the door and threw her on a table. Before she could even think in getting off the table, the man whispered to her:

"You don't even try that, or it will be worse for you. Trust me."

After hearing that, Katie stayed quiet and tried to think of a way of getting out of there. She was lying on a wooden table and around her, hanging from the wall and the ceiling, there were all kinds of electrical and sharpened instruments: saws, knives, drills, some shining things she didn't know what they were made for… But she knew for what that man was going to use them.

He was on her left, turned to a counter on the wall and he had some of those in his hands, putting them on a small tray while he whistled a song. Then he turned to her, holding the tray with a smile on his face.

"First let me tight you up" he said.

Katie stayed quiet. He removed the scotch tapes and said she was a good girl for not fighting back while he removed them. But he was far wrong. Once her legs were free, Katie kicked his face with all the strength she could gather. The man went blind for a moment, putting his hands on his bleeding nose. Katie jumped off of the table and ran to the door left open when they got in, another mistake of the man. She ran out of the house, going as fast as she could in the desert sand, and for her luck, it was a big way up she had to deal with. Katie was weak and hungry, her eyes were still watering and it was hard to breath, but she tried anyway. She was running for her life.

She didn't know, but behind her the man came with a huge knife, shaking it in the air and calling her names while he ran after her.

Katie started to lose her energy and she couldn't run anymore. She fell to the floor and still tried to crawl away, but it was too much for her. She was dead already.

The man reached up to her with the knife in his hands. Noticing she couldn't go any further he laughed at her situation. He just stood there, smiling at her weakness.

"Do you want me to cut your throat right here and do you want me to take you back and remove your organs?"

Katie couldn't even keep her eyes open; talking was out of the question.

"Look, you've been a bad girl… But I'm gonna be nice to you. I promise it won't hurt at all okay?"

He rolled her over with a foot, making her face him. Barely breathing, Katie looked into her murderer's eyes and told him to go to hell. Mad as hell, the man carved the knife on her neck, destroying her throat and a few more moves would certainly remove the head from the body. The blood spread all around, entering the sand and disappearing below the desert. And the night heard one last laugh from the crazy man and his victim for that night.

*Note: Stay tuned for Secrets From The Desert II. I promise I'll try to do it better : )


	5. 5 Aliens In The Panopticon

5. Aliens In The Panopticon

_"Today the bodies of a young couple were found in the woods near The Panopticon area, northwest of Red County. The bodies were discovered this morning after six p.m. and no evidence of the killer was found yet. There were many bruises on the bodies and it's believed that the internal organs were surgically removed for unknown reasons. The police is now on the case, but they expect to find too much, since The Panopticon has been a dark area and many obscure accidents have happened up there."_

Kevin parked the car beyond the trees, behind the small wooden construction, once made to stock wood, now complete abandoned like the rest of the place.

"Come on" Kevin called for Lilith and they both got out of the car.

"This is where you wanted to take me?" Lilith sounded disappointed.

"Yes, yes! Don't worry, just come with me."

Kevin took her by the hand and started pulling her towards the small houses. They were all empty and dusty and that crept the hell out of her, but she trusted Kevin. They had been dating for over a month and he had been the kindest man in the world to her.

"Here…"

He opened one of the doors and inside he had laid down a white sheet and decorated the place with roses. It looked nice and Lilith really liked his intentions.

"So?"

"It's awesome."

She couldn't hold a smile while she kissed him and they both lay down on the sheets, taking each other's clothes and kissing more and more.

"You only missed one thing" she said.

"What?"

"Music."

They laughed at it and continued to kiss.

Suddenly a loud bang was heard not too far from where they were.

"What was that?" Lilith asked.

"Probably nothing" Kevin was too busy kissing her neck.

"Kevin, you should go check on your car."

"Come on, Lilith…"

"Please, Kevin. Just go out and check."

He sighed but agreed anyway. He knew she wouldn't give up till he go check on the car.

Kevin stood up and left Lilith alone, going down The Panopticon to where he had parked his car. It was there, like he had left it minutes ago, nothing weird about it. That sound must have been nothing, maybe a car crash at the road next to The Panopticon.

He came back to Lilith and lay next to her again, saying it was nothing, but the moment he laid there another bang was heard.

"What the hell is that?" Lilith was starting to get scared.

"I'm telling you, Lilly, it's nothing. Come on, let it go."

Still apprehensive, Lilith let Kevin kiss her again and take off her blouse, but she was paying attention to any unusual sound outside. It didn't take long until they hear another bang, but that last one seemed to be stronger and closer.

"Come on, Kevin, what the hell is that?" she pushed him away and put her blouse back on.

"Look, I don't know, Lilith. I went outside and everything's normal."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna do this with those things outside."

Kevin rolled his eyes.

"You wanna come with me and check it out?" he invited her.

"Yes."

He grabbed her by the hand and led her outside. Everything was normal, as before.

"See? Nothing."

"That sound was something…"

"But it stopped now. Let's go back…"

When they were about to go back into the small house, they heard footsteps behind them. They turned around, but nothing. When they turned back, the footsteps were closer and suddenly they both felt arms around their necks and hands putting cloths on their mouths. Lilith tried to scream but she immediately fainted with the liquid on the cloth.

Kevin woke up in a metal table with his arms and legs tied up. Next to him Lilith was lying unconscious, also tied up. He looked around; the place looked like a hospital, a surgery room perhaps. Kevin didn't quite know where they were and that just freaked him out. What did those people who attacked them want?

A figure with a black hood over its head came through one of the doors. Behind it more two came in too.

It had the height of a grownup human and it wore a white jacket like a doctor, but its skin was nothing human… Kevin could see that all of them had at least seven fingers in each hand and the hands were much bigger than a human's hand. Also, the skin wasn't human at all. It had a dark gray color and it seemed that the right's hand was on the left side and the left was on the right side. Creepy as hell, he was just glad Lilith wasn't awake yet.

The hooded figures walked to a table with a lot of instruments and started to pick up things and put them in place, talking to each other in a strange language. They were discussing…

"Hey!" Kevin screamed. "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

The figure that seemed to be the most important one turned to him when he screamed, but then it turned away, just ignoring Kevin's screams. He realized screaming had been an awful idea when Lilith's body started to move and she opened her eyes. She looked around just like he had then their eyes met.

"What the hell is going on?" she cried out.

"I don't know. Sweet, don't panic, okay? Stay calm, alright?"

"Stay calm? How can I stay calm?!?"

The alien that had turned to Kevin before turned again and said something in that weird language, but it seemed that he was telling him to be quiet.

"F*** you! Just f*** you!" Kevin yelled.

"Stop it! Do you want to get them mad too?" tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"What are we going to do?" he asked her.

"I don't know, we're tied up here…What do you think they're gonna do to us?"

"Don't think about it, Lilly…"

Kevin tried to free his hands but it was impossible. His hands and feet were almost nailed to the table. Lilith was trying too, but when she realized she couldn't do anything she started to panic. Her body kept moving like she as having a seizure or something and her eyes were wide open. Kevin told her to stop and calm down, seeing her like that was driving him crazy, but when she was about to stop the aliens moved to her table with that tray full of creepy instruments. Kevin lost his mind shouting at them not to do it, but they just ignored him.

He didn't want to look but he needed to know. Luckily one of the aliens had stopped in front of him and all Kevin could see was Lilith's head and legs. She was crying and she called for him, desperate for help. He couldn't see her like that, he started to cry too, but the worst was about to come.

The aliens had moved her blouse up, exposing her belly. They cleaned the area with what was supposed to be alcohol and the alien made the first cut with the scalpel. Lilith screamed so loud that she could have broken a few windows. Kevin saw blood on the table and her screams just confirmed that they were doing a real surgery. Lilith kept screaming really loud, and Kevin couldn't take it anymore. He started to yell her to stop with the screams, but she wasn't listening anymore, the pain was worse than anything they could stand. Every time the aliens picked one of the instruments and inserted it on her belly she just screamed louder and louder. They went on like that for around forty seconds till she went mute. Her eyes were lost somewhere above his head and her body started to relax on the table. She was slowly dying of pai

She moved her eyes to Kevin and died in that position, silently gazing her last boyfriend. Kevin's body started to shiver and he couldn't control that. He couldn't believe what they were doing, those evil things… And he was going to be the next to suffer as much as she had. Perhaps they had other plans for him; maybe remove the brains, the lungs… It was definitely going to be worse for him.

Kevin saw the aliens remove her organs and put them in trays, one of them took them away to what seemed to be a freezer. They were analyzing them, they wanted to know what humans were made of… Who said aliens didn't exist? People were wrong… Aliens were living among them and they wanted to know more and more about us…

Kevin decided he wasn't going to die screaming in pain like Lilith. When the aliens were done with his girlfriend and were now surrounding his table with the scary instruments in their hands, Kevin wasn't panicking like Lilith. He closed his eyes and prepared for the pain, which came quite fast. It was nearly unbearable, but his love for Lilith didn't let him scream. Kevin kept his eyes closed and bit his lower lip until he finally felt life slipping away from his body and the final relief of death approaching slowly. It is true, you see your entire life moments before you die, and while he watched the film of his life in front of his eyes, Kevin smiled. Suddenly there was no pain, there were no aliens and creepy instrument. Just the calm darkness that death brings.

*Note: I know this story doesn't have to do with GTA San Andreas, but where else would I put it? I took the UFO thing that is a myth/mod in SA and I took it to the next level... Maybe in the future I'll create a more "GTA" UFO story, but for now this is what you get. And sorry for the grammar errors, you already know, it's not my first language. Feel free to correct them? Yeah, please, don't say I'm an idiot.


	6. 6 Trapped

6. Trapped

Luke opened the door and got into the house. The door suddenly closed behind him like closed by the wind, but there was no wind. He thought that was odd, but it was nothing serious.

In the kitchen he left his packages and grabbed an old piece of pie from the fridge. His neck was killing him. After watching some TV he was gonna lie in his bed and sleep till the sun was up in the sky. Then he would spend the whole day inside the house, doing nothing like the useless piece of s*** he's always been.

Luke opened a beer and sat in the small living room to watch TV. He had bought the house from the brother of the old owner, since he had died a few months ago. It looked like he was involved with a lot of s***, he had to die someday, they said.

The house was in one of the gang neighborhoods in Los Santos, surrounded by gang member's homes and a lot of crime. Shots were heard all the time and the gangs were fighting around all the time too. People would say Luke was just crazy to buy a house there, but the money was running low and he had to find a place to live soon enough. So this was better than nothing.

The TV wasn't working anymore. He checked it out, checked the wires and buttons, everything was apparently normal, but the TV would show no image. It probably was broken, it had been there too long. He had to buy a new one.

Annoyed, Luke sat in the dark and slowly drank his beer. He watched time pass on the clock above his head, slowly counting every second till he got tired. Then he decided to take a look around the house. There were still paintings and old furniture left from the old owner there, so Luke decided to take a look at that with the beer in his hands to make time pass faster.

When he got tired of that too he checked the clock and decided it was time to go to bed. He left the bottle on the counter of the kitchen and started going up the stairs in the living room, heading to his bedroom. When he placed the first foot on the steps, he heard a click noise behind him.

Luke turned around in the dark and tried to see with the moonlight that came through the windows, but he didn't see anything unusual, although the clicking noise had sounded too damn close to him. Maybe the beer was doing something to his imagination.

Luke started up the stairs again, but when he reached the fifth step, there was another clicking noise, like somebody pushing buttons in the living room. Luke looked around again and even turned the lights on, but there was nothing there. Something was making that noise and he couldn't see it.

He started taking things out of place, searching for the source of those clicking noises, but after a few minutes he realized he was getting nowhere with that. The noise had stopped until he started going up the stairs again, but that time he didn't turn around, he just stood there in the dark, trying to hear something else. The noise continued in a sick rhythm that was driving him crazy, so Luke turned around once again and with that sudden movement he saw something moving in the dark. A shadow went by him in the living room and disappeared in less than a second. Luke couldn't believe his eyes. Something was going on.

He turned on the lights. The room was normal.

Luke went to the kitchen and grabbed the gun from one of the counters, placing two bullets in it. Pointing the gun, he slowly walked back to the living room.

With the lights on, the place was normal, but he was sure the moment he turned off the lights, something would happen. So he decided to wait.

Luke sat on the couch once again and waited patiently for five minutes. After those quiet five minutes, he gave up and went to bed. That time there was no clicking noise behind him, no shadow, no movement. Finally.

He comfortably rested his head on the pillow and prepared himself to sleep. He was thinking about women when he heard another clicking sound, much louder this time, coming from downstairs again. Whatever was doing that, was back now.

Luke didn't do anything for a moment, but something else started to happen downstairs beside the clicking noise. After it he heard the sound of a tape being inserted into the VCR and the sound of static coming from the TV that hadn't worked before.

He sat on bed and waited. The TV was working downstairs, suddenly turned on by "something". Luke was scared. There was something downstairs.

Luke got up, put on his slippers and dragged himself through the hallway, slowly going down the stairs.

The TV was on, in fact, showing nothing but static. He took a careful look around before crossing the living room, and when he was just a few inches away from the TV button it turned off by itself. Now Luke was all alone in the dark again.

He stood there, trying to listen to every single sound. That was when he realized the street outside was too quiet for him. Usually there were people outside talking, or smoking or shooting each other or just walking, but now everything was suddenly too quiet.

Carefully, Luke walked to the window and looked outside. Nothing. There wasn't anybody on the street as far as he could see. Weird.

He tried opening the door, but it was locked now. He hadn't locked it when he got in, he remembered it'd suddenly banged behind him. Now it was completely closed.

Luke turned around in the dark and tried to see something different from the furniture that lay silently there, the dim moonlight coming through the windows didn't help a lot. Luke reached for the light button. He thought it wouldn't turn on at all, but it did, and after the light was on he realized it would be much better if it weren't.

The small light hanging from the ceiling, that minutes ago had lightened the whole room with a bright white glow, had now turned into a yellow lamp, much weaker than before and giving a dramatic effect to the whole house. There were shadows all around him now, _moving_ shadows, things that hadn't been there before. And paying attention to the shadows he realized that the light from the ceiling wasn't the only source of light there. It seemed that wall lamps had been set there, like a fancy illumination set that you see in those big houses in Vinewood, but the lights came from nowhere!

Luke felt his heart beat faster. Something was definitely going on, something obscure, beyond comprehension. And he was trapped in the house.

He ran to the kitchen, still holding the gun in his right hand, and tried to open the windows, he tried even to break one with a can, but the window seemed to be made of steel, all of a sudden.

Desperate, he tried upstairs and every damn way out of the house he could imagine, but he failed every time. He was locked in.

Out of options, Luke sadly went to the living room and sat silently in the dark, holding the gun in his lap. Just wait. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe there was poison in that damn beer and he had fallen asleep and sent into a crazy nightmare. Maybe…

A huge bang was heard in the kitchen, like a door that was closed by the wind, but much, _much_ louder. Luke had to cover his ears after that, and for a few seconds he thought he had become deaf.

He walked slowly to the kitchen, annoyed by the fact that he couldn't hear a damn thing, imagining what the hell that could have been. There was nothing unusual there, he thought at first, but when he turned around to leave he saw a small pack lying on the floor. It wasn't there before.

Luke picked it up, but let it fall down to the floor the moment he noticed what it was. Inside the pack there was a human eye.

The eye rolled on the floor, intact, and then stopped when it hit the wall. Luke could be imagining things, but he was sure he saw the eye move like it had its own will and look right up to him.

Terrified, Luke ran to the living room and kicked the door with all the strength he could gather at that moment. Besides the loud noise and the pain, nothing happened. Luke tried opening it, but it was locked. The key didn't change anything either.

He sat on the couch in the living room and gazed the dark. The gun lay between his legs. Nothing else. Cold, empty darkness surrounded him that moment, and still he was going nowhere. Luke ran his hands through his hair, thinking. There was nothing else to do but to wait in the dark.

Luke held the gun in his lap and waited. Through the window he could see the deserted street, the dim moonlight and the black sky, so close and so far to him at the same time.

He tried to think reasonably. Perhaps that was just a dream. When was the last time he had been asleep? Last night… At that same house where he was trapped now. No, it wasn't a dream. It _couldn't_ be a dream, it was too damn real. He slapped his face and pinched his arm, but nothing helped. "Stop hurting yourself, moron", he thought to himself. He had already hurt his foot with the door, when you find yourself in that position you shouldn't be causing more damage to yourself.

Suddenly a cold breeze started to blow behind him. It was coming from _behind_ him, like an invisible ventilator had been put there, right behind him. Luke didn't dare to look.

He felt cold fingers on his shoulder, moving to his neck and pressing his throat. Luke froze there on the couch, the hands slowly started to asphyxiate him. He jumped from the couch, stepping on the VHS lying all over the floor, the remote, only stopping when he met the wall with the front window. He looked around, nothing there besides his furniture. A ghost. The same shadow he had seen going by him when he came down the stairs.

He felt his heart ready to come out his mouth. Luke had never felt so scared in his whole life like the way he was feeling now. Then he realized the gun was on the couch. He left it there when he jumped out of the couch.

Luke threw himself over the couch and grabbed the gun like it was his last chance to survive. He checked if all the bullets were there, his hands shaking and the sweat dripping over them. He had knelt on the floor desperate, and when he turned around to sit on the couch again, he saw the window, but it wasn't _just_ the window. A face was looking at him through the glass, like a child observing something new, but it wasn't a child at all. Everything was so blurred to him, but he could see that it was completely black with red eyes and a very long hair that was floating around it, like there was no gravity. He couldn't see the lines of the face, but he knew that, whatever that was, had its hands on the parapet and it looked at him so interested and yet so frightening. Luke pointed the gun shivering to the window and fired twice. The shots were pretty loud and the impact made him fall over the couch. When he looked up, the window was intact, but the black figure was gone.

"What the hell is going on here?" he yelled. There wasn't pretty much anything he could do besides scream for help.

Luke stood up and went to the kitchen. The eye was still there, moving around to watch him, but he didn't care for that. He tried calling the cops over the phone, but the line had been cut. He went upstairs and tried to find something, anything, that could get him out of there, but he failed.

Disappointed and scared, he came downstairs, stopping at the first step of the stairs and looking at the small creature that was standing in front of him, the same that had been outside the window, looking at him with those red eyes.

He raised the gun, but then, in an involuntary movement, he let it fall to the floor. Then the gun was thrown all the way over the floor till it stopped in the kitchen.

Luke had his eyes on the black figure, which had now turned its red eyes to him.

"What… What do you want?" he stuttered.

No answer, just that piercing gaze.

"What the hell is going on?" he repeated, but again there was no answer.

The thing raised one black, foggy, finger and pointed it to Luke, making the gesture that it wanted him to get closer. Luke didn't move.

"What do you want from me?" he shouted at it. "What do you want?!?"

The eyes moved and pointed to the kitchen's door. Luke looked there too, but it was too late. Two knives came floating through the door and pierced both of his eyes, entering his skull and his brain. Luke fell to the floor, dead and bleeding through his eyes holes, with the two knives carved into each one. He didn't have time to think or to even see what was going on, he was dead before that. Even if there was that "afterlife", he could never understand what the hell was going on in that house the moment he died.

Epilogue

They only found the body a week later, when the neighbors started to miss the new guy who had bought the house. They decided to check it out, and they found the body lying on the floor in the living room, with insects all over it and horrible smell of decomposition. They called the police, and after a few days the house was cleaned and ready to accept another person into it, but what happened there that killed that guy would always intrigue them.


	7. 7 Photos

7. Photos

"Just two more photos and we're leaving" Sarah told Greg, who was standing by the van parked in the desert.

"We have to go back before noon" he warned her.

"I know. Come on, the last photo and we'll be going."

Since it was her last photo, Sarah wanted it to be nice. There were many interesting places around that abandoned village and she believed she had photographed all of them. She just needed one more photo.

Sarah surrounded the houses with the camera in her hand, trying every angle, but all of them looked too ordinary for her. She started to walk to the farthest houses to the west. The ocean was out there, and she didn't pay much attention to it before, but now it was calling for her. She got closer and closer and positioned the camera. It was amazing, the colors that the sun combined with the water and the small details around the frame.

"Okay, now we can go" she told Greg.

He thought she hadn't seen he raised his hands to the sky and murmur "Thanks God", but she did.

Sarah was working for a new supernatural magazine since she was fired from the newspaper and after shooting Bigfoot evidences in Back'oBeyond and the rusty wheelchair in Palomino Creek, she was sent to the desert to photograph the Ghost Town that many thought was haunted. There were people who claimed to have heard voices around the area and some even said they had seen ghosts wandering around there. As always, there were no pictures of the ghosts, only the empty houses.

There was also a rumor that the place was cursed and everyone who entered it will be cursed too. That was used as the explanation to a wave of suicides that happen in the 90s' because the police couldn't find a reasonable one and officially those suicides were still open in the files in the police station.

Sarah personally didn't believe those things, but she needed a job and it was kind of fun to take pictures of things people believed to be "supernatural". She admitted that some things were really creepy, but nothing to wow her. She and Greg usually had fun mocking the ones who believed those things while they were shooting.

Greg drove them home. They shared an apartment with him for over a year and impressively they had never dated each other. It's very common and almost sure that men and women who lived together will eventually become girlfriend and boyfriend, but that didn't happen with him. Greg needed somebody to help him with the rent of the apartment because he couldn't afford it, plus he was going to a very expensive college too, and Sarah needed a cheap place to stay till she settled down in San Andreas, but she was enjoying staying with him. He would come with her when she was shooting for the newspaper and later for the magazine and when he wasn't at college they would go out. He was very nice and smart and helped her many times before.

"What do you think?" he asked her.

"About what?"

"This ghost town."

She giggled.

"You know what I always think about those things."

"Crap."

"Exactly."

They both giggled.

"Do you want to grab something to eat first?"

"Do we have time?"

"Yes."

"But where? We're in the very middle of the desert."

"We can stop by Fort Carson, at the Cluckin' Bells."

"Oh, yeah. Okay, then."

They had stopped by the Cluckin' Bells and headed to Las Venturas, where she worked to develop the film and deliver the photos to the editor. Around three o'clock they were coming back to San Fierro, where they lived, and they just hanged around the city till the night come and they return to the apartment.

Sarah had a copy of the pictures she had taken earlier and she was looking at them in her bedroom while Greg watched TV in the living room. Going through the photos she found something very interesting in one of them. A light reflex had created an effect on the photo that really looked like a ghost. She laughed at it; the editor was going to go deep with it when he published the magazine. That could take the front page, with some luck.

"Hey, Greg, take a look at this" she said, handing him the picture.

"Ghost?" he asked.

"Apparently. Just the light."

"Oh. Your editor's gonna love that."

"I know. It kinda looks like a ghost, doesn't it? If you pay attention this could the face, those the feet…"

"And his third arm right here" Greg pointed a spot in the picture. Sarah laughed.

"You're right. Well, I'm off to bed. Are you going to stay here?"

"Yes, I'll go to bed in a few minutes."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Sarah put on her pajamas and lay on the bed, under the covers. She slept pretty fast and she had a weird dream, but she couldn't remember it when she woke up.

It was already bright outside, the sun was already up and the city had already awakened. Sarah thought that was odd, she was always up before eight o'clock and it seemed to be almost noon.

She went to the kitchen where Greg was cooking while he listened to the radio.

"Hey" she said.

"Hey, sleepy. You've reached your record today" he joked.

"What? What time is it?"

"Eleven and a half. You slept twelve hours straight."

"Oh my God! How the hell did that happen?"

"I'm asking you. I thought I'd wake you up, but I wanted to see how long you'd go."

"Greg…"

"I'm kidding. You never slept like this before, I thought waking you up would be mean to you."

"Did anyone call?"

"A bunch of people. Your boss called three times."

"Oh my God" she started to panic. "What did he say?"

"First time he wanted to talk to you about the photos, and the second time he seemed a bit annoyed that you were still sleeping."

"And yet you didn't wake me up?"

"I'm sorry!"

She couldn't blame Greg, it definitely wasn't his fault.

Sarah went to the living room and called her boss. He certainly was mad at her by now.

"Harry? It's me, Sarah."

"Thanks God you're awake. Did you have a good night last night?" he was being sarcastic.

"No, chief, I swear I went to bed before eleven…"

"Yeah, yeah, doesn't matter now… Look, I wanted to talk to you about your photos."

"What's with them?"

"Nothing, they're great. Just to remind you, there's the meeting tomorrow at four p.m., okay? Great job, Sarah."

"Thank you, sir, I won't forget."

Since Sarah had the day off, she decided to stay at home and use her computer. Sometimes she had fun modifying her pictures with Photoshop and posting them on her blog, so she decided to do that with the pictures from the ghost town.

She started going through the pictures, separating the ones she thought were easier to mod. When she got to the last photo she frowned.

It was the photo of the ocean that had momentarily hypnotized her, but the photo was different from what she had shot. She had shot the empty ocean and the far landscape, but there was a boat on the photo she hadn't noticed before. When she took it there was no boat, because she didn't remember framing a boat… The ocean was clean that day and she had focused on the landscape of the desert behind. That was so weird.

She didn't think about it till it was night and she was having dinner with Greg in the kitchen. They were eating pizza, their favorite.

"Hey, I noticed something weird about the picture of the ocean today" she said.

"Really? What?"

"It was different. There was a boat in it. Do you remember a boat there?"

"I wasn't paying attention that moment."

"I know, but you saw the pictures later, didn't you? Do you remember a boat?"

"Not really."

Greg didn't seem to care too much about it, so Sarah decided to let go too. Maybe she was just imagining things.

The next day Sarah went to the meeting at four p.m., taking with her the picture of the ocean that now had a boat in it. She wanted to compare with the copies that she had sent her boss.

The meeting went fine, and when it was over she approached her boss and asked if he still had the photos. He said yes, they were in his office, so he took her there and gave her the photos. Sarah found the ocean picture, and it had the boat too.

"Something's wrong?" he asked.

"No… Sir, did you see a boat in this picture when I gave it to you?"

"I have no idea, I didn't pay attention to this photo, it's just a photo of the ocean."

"I know… Well, thanks, chief."

"You're welcome."

Sarah left the building and decided to stop by the Burger Shot before going back home. She kept thinking about the picture and she wished someone had seen it before… While sitting on the plastic benches of the cafeteria she examined every single detail of the picture. Everything was okay… _except for the boat._ Maybe she was imagining things, of course the boat had been there since the beginning. She needed to forget about it.

She went home and met Greg, they watched TV and then they went to bed. She forgot about the picture, it was just another picture.

That night she had awful dreams, really scary, sometimes a little bit funny, but mostly scary. She was walking down a street somewhere in San Fierro and the world seemed to be falling apart around her, like in a post-apocalyptic kind of movie. All those crazy stuff that the magazine she worked for wrote since it was created was living around her… Ghosts, zombies, monsters, aliens, a real chaos. Among those she was just another one, another human, but they didn't seem to care about her. She kept walking till she met Greg. Half of his face was gone.

"What happened?" she asked.

"They… Asked me… Where you were…" he cried.

"What do they want?"

"They want you… Something about taking control… And you are the one…"

"Do you need help?"

"No, I'm okay. It will heal."

It could have only been a dream, because never a guy with half his face would say it was okay.

"Alright."

The dream went on and before she knew it, she was waking up in her bed. Greg was already up and was in the kitchen

She put on new clothes and went to the kitchen where Greg was, but on her way she passed through the living room and the pictures of the ghost town were lying on the table, all messed. She frowned.

"Greg, did you touch my photos?" she asked.

"What? No… I didn't touch them."

"Why are they all messed up?"

"Dunno."

She was sure she hadn't let them all messed up last night, she had put them in a perfect pile on the table.

"Maybe it was just the wind" Greg said, looking over her shoulder with a cup in his hands.

"Yeah, right…"

Perhaps Sarah was just being paranoiac. It had to be because of her work at the magazine, all those crazy stories that she photographed were now starting into her head.

A few days passed and she eventually forgot about the boat photograph and went back to her normal life. The pictures were archived inside her drawer and she didn't think about them anymore, until the next Saturday, when she came home after shooting a car accident on the road that connected the Gant Bridge and Tierra Robada. She put away her stuff and went to the living room with Greg when they both heard a loud bang coming from her bedroom. They looked at each other, and then both stood up and went to her bedroom.

The huge pile of papers she had left on the table was now flying around the room. Her desk drawers were all open, so were the closet doors. The pictures, once organized inside those drawers, were now all spread around the room, some even torn and scribbled. It was like a hurricane had passed and left that mess behind. Their chins dropped as they were shocked with that mess.

"What the hell happened?" she asked, trying to set her foot on a blank space on the floor. Everything was covered by her pictures and notes.

"I have no frigging idea" Greg answered, following her.

Sarah bent over to pick up her things. Greg helped her.

"God…"

She was throwing everything over her bed when all of a sudden she spotted a picture among those many others. It was like her eyes were attracted to it. She kneeled down and picked it up.

Standing up again, she held the picture in her hands. It was the picture with the boat in it. But it was so much different from the last time.

When she took it, originally, it was just a huge gap between the rocks and through it you could see the ocean and the far coast of the lands of Tierra Robada. But now, it wasn't that anymore. The picture had a light blurred picture on one side, the one that looked like a person, and it wasn't day anymore. It was like the picture had been taken at night, everything so perfectly changed.

And that wasn't all. If you turned the picture a little so the light from the window would hit it in the right angle, you could see a message written over the picture. Sarah got closer to window, without realizing Greg had stopped organizing anything and was now observing her.

Sarah stood by it and with the light from the street she could read "HELP ME".

"So typical" she muttered after awhile.

"What?"

He got closer to her and took the picture from her hands.

"What's this?"

"That's the picture I took that day, remember? At that ghost town…"

"Oh, the one you took just for fun…"

"Yes. Remember I said there was boat in it that wasn't there before?"

"Of course."

"Well, now there's a boat, a ghost, apparently and a hidden message."

"Let me see it."

He analyzed it for a few moments then he gave it back to Sarah without saying a word.

"So?" she asked, completely stomped on the floor.

He ran his hands through his hair and sighed.

"That's pretty bizarre, Sarah."

"I know it is. What are we going to do about it?"

"What _can_ we do? We don't know what the hell is going on!"

They were quiet for a moment, thinking to themselves.

"I think we should go back there" Sarah said, after awhile.

"No. Why would we come back there?"

"To settle this."

"We don't have a clue of what this is."

"Whatever it is" she interrupted him, "it is there, Greg."

"Look, maybe it's nothing at all" he concluded. "You know, let's just forget about it…"

She looked at him, not believing. But he was serious. His face was so cute that moment that she didn't feel like arguing anymore. They picked up the rest of the files and let them all over the bed. She would put them in place when she went to bed.

Well, she didn't, after all. When she went to bed at midnight, tired and sleepy and she saw that mess she just turned around and asked Greg if she could sleep in his bedroom. He had a double bed, but she was fine sleeping on the floor.

"Sarah, you're not sleeping on the floor" he said.

"But I don't want to pick those things up…"

"You can sleep…" but he didn't finish the sentence.

She raised an eyebrow to him, teasing.

"You mean I can sleep in the same bed with you?"

"I promise I won't do anything. We're just gonna be sleeping."

"You bet we will."

She went to her bedroom to put on her pajamas and when she came back, she said:

"I've always wanted to sleep on this bed, anyway."

Greg laughed.

"Don't ask me why."

They both laid side by side, each with its own blanket, and tried to sleep. Sarah had plans for the next day.

They were driving back to that ghost town in the middle of Bone County. Greg was a little moody because he didn't want to be there, but Sarah tried to ignore that. He parked the truck on the very same spot he had last time and both jumped off the vehicle. Sarah had her camera around her neck and she quickly started to move towards that same gap she had photographed that other day.

She took some more photos of that gap and then from the rest of the town. Greg just walked around for awhile, but then she heard him calling her from some place near the truck.

"What?" she called back. Greg was standing next some tombstones next to the Ghost Town.

"Come here."

She approached him with interest.

"What?"

"Look at the dates."

She scanned the tombstones with her eyes. The date of their deaths was pretty close, but what called their attention was the fact that somebody had scribbled over the end of every date, making it almost impossible to read in some places.

"Who did this?"

"Or what" Greg replied.

She started taking some pictures while he walked around, looking for something else.

"But most importantly, why did they do it?"

"I have no idea."

Suddenly they heard a sound behind them. It was somewhat far, but it was still loud enough. It was the sound of something hitting the water from a big height, something heavy and a bit soft.

"What was that?"

They glanced at each other and then both started walking towards that gap again, walking faster than normal.

Sarah and Greg bended over the edge and gazed down. The water was normal.

"You heard it, right?" she asked.

"Of course. Something fell down on the water."

"But what?"

"I have no idea. Try to take a photo of it."

She took a few photos.

"Let's go now, Sarah. We shouldn't be here anymore."

"Let me just take one last…"

"Now, Sarah!"

Greg shouted so loud that it scared her and almost made her trip and fall down the edge of the crag.

She looked back at him in disbelief for his tone of voice.

"I'm sorry. Let's just get out of here, okay?"

Sarah was still confused, but she accepted his arm and let it around her waist. Checking the photos in her hands with the camera while Greg's arm led her back to the truck, she found something interesting in one of the photos.

"Greg, look!"

He let go of her body as they reached the truck.

"What is it?"

"Look."

Sara showed Greg the photo of the crag. The one she had just taken after they heard the sound of the fall.

The picture wasn't static. It was _moving_. Like a slow and sickening movie. The water was moving as the dim wind seemed to pass over it. There was also something else in it. Something _floating_ on the water, following the movement of the water.

"What the hell is that?"

"I don't know, Greg."

They both felt goose-bumps all over their bodies. Greg left the camera and turned around, walking back to the crag.

"What the hell are you doing?"

He didn't answer. Sarah ran over to where he was standing now, kneeling on the edge of the crag and gazing down, searching for something on the water.

"Let's go, Greg."

"You said you wanted to find out what was here" he replied.

"I don't want to anymore. Let's go, please."

Greg didn't move. She could hear his heavy breath, it was louder and harder than it should. She started to worry.

"If you're not coming with me, then I'm going alone."

Decided, she went back to the truck, not caring if he really wanted to stay there for the whole night. After what they'd seen, she just wanted to go home.

When she was going to start the truck, Greg suddenly appeared next to her, frightening her.

"How the hell did you get here?"

"Just drive."

With her heart almost on her throat, she started the truck and drove back to their apartment. Greg was quiet all the time, but he was also frowning more than he should, like he was thinking very hard about something. He seemed somehow mad at something, but she couldn't tell. There was something really wrong with him, she realized during the time she drove.

When they got home she decided she should start putting those photos back in place if she wanted to sleep in her bed tonight. She also didn't feel so good about sleeping in the same bed with Greg.

She opened her bedroom door and, prepared for a big mess, she found the room impeccably organized and clean.

"Greg, did you clean my room up?" she yelled to him.

"No" he answered, showing up at the end of the hallway with a book in his hands.

"What?"

He took a look at the bedroom and suddenly his head gave it a little twist, like a twitch, and then his expression changed to a frightening smile.

"Oh" he said, still with that creep smile. "That was me. I cleaned it up for you. The place was a real mess."

He turned around and disappeared inside the living room. Sarah stood there, completely stomped on the floor, frowning. What the hell was that twitch? Since when did Greg do that?

Sarah took a shower and then she stayed inside her bedroom while Greg was on the living room. Sometimes she heard small things falling or kind of breaking in there, and she would go there to see if he was okay. Greg was lying on the couch with the remote on his lap and watching TV. He would ask her if everything was okay and she would just simply nod and go back to her room more confused than ever.

Perhaps there was something going on in there, with them. With Greg, specially.

Sarah had been around that paranormal stuff for a long time, since she started shooting for the magazine. It wasn't something she personally believed or was interested on, but she would buy the magazine to see her photos and sometimes she read what they had to say. It all sounded so impossible and even funny to her that after she'd read the magazine, she threw it away, laughing. At least it was what she did until not long ago. Was it really possible that they had seen that picture move and change and heard all of those sounds? Perhaps the world wasn't that concrete thing that she used to believe and that spiritual things could really exist…

Sarah went to bed that night with the thought in her head. Lying in her bed she could hear Greg roll on his bed more than ever. It was like he couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep. The noise started to irritate her, so she covered her ears with the pillow for a moment, and when she took it off, minutes later, the place was calmer than ever. She couldn't even hear the street sounds outside her window. It was easier for her to sleep, but she had to admit, it was kind of scary.

The next morning she woke up at nine a.m. and she realized the apartment was quieter than it should be. She put on her old clothes and went to check Greg's bedroom. It was empty, like it would be after he'd get up in the morning. There wasn't water running in the shower, so he wasn't there either. She checked the rest of the place. It was empty. He also didn't leave any note of where he had gone.

Sarah sat down on the couch in the living room, trying to figure out what to do next. Something was very wrong there, Greg never left without letting her, and it was very early; where could he had possible gone?

But it wasn't Greg anymore, was it? The way he was behaving since they visited that ghost town was more than frightening. Nobody changed like that in one day, especially Greg. She needed to find him.

Sarah jumped out of the couch and started looking for the keys. They weren't there. He'd taken the truck.

Something bad hit her and she suddenly felt the urge to go after him any way she could. She knew where he was; probably even knew what he was up to, and she needed to stop him before he hurt anyone, or even himself.

She found a cab and hurried the driver to the north side of Bone County. The man was a middle-aged black man with a moustache. At first he didn't understand her rush, and after insisting she told him, fearing that he might laugh at her face. He didn't. He said he believed in those things and if she thought her friend could be doing a bad thing, she should be there as soon as possible. Crossing some red lights, he dropped her off near the Sherman Dam and wished her luck. Sarah paid and thanked the man while jumping out of the car and running towards the ghost town.

The truck was parked where they usually parked it and somewhere around she heard the voice of a young woman imploring someone not to kill her. Trying to be silent, Sarah moved along the abandoned houses of the ghost town until she found them behind one house. Greg was standing up with a knife in his hands, gazing down at the woman lying before his feet. He played with the knife while the woman begged him to let her go.

For a moment Sarah didn't know what to do. They were just standing there, if she made a move, he would see her, and God knows what the hell he could do then. She decided to wait and hide behind another house. She could see them, but she couldn't hear what they were saying. Suddenly he picked her up by the throat and threw her back down. The woman was shivering and crying while he just watched her with a cold gaze.

Greg made her stand up and start to walk to the edge of the crag with the knife on her back. They walked very close to where she was hiding, and that moment she could hate inside his eyes, something she had never seen in them. Greg had always been a kind and caring guy; that wasn't him anymore.

Sarah followed them, fearing he could hurt that woman at any moment. Sometimes the hand the knife gave a little twitch, making the woman scream and shake even more.

When they were almost on the edge of the crag, Sarah decided she had waited too long.

"Greg, stop it!" her yell cut through the air.

He turned around and so did the woman, both of them looking at her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked her, savage.

"Leave her alone."

"You can't tell me what to do."

Sarah had trouble breathing and the words got caught in her throat. She didn't know what else to say.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked carefully.

He gave her a twisted smile.

"Who am I? I'm Greg, right? You're roomie, your friend. Sometimes even your _lover_."

Every second her heart was beating faster and faster. She tried to move closer, slowly, so he wouldn't notice.

"You're not him. Who are you?" that time her voice was stronger.

"You really want to know who I am?" he was having fun with it. "Okay, I'll tell you."

Suddenly he turned around and sliced the woman's neck. Sarah was horrified as the blood started to spill all over the sand while Greg laughed out loud. Sarah started to run to the fallen woman, but then his expression became dark as he pointed a finger to her and said:

"Don't you dare take a step closer."

Sarah stopped half way between them and looked coldly at Greg. His eyes were burning and his mouth was twisted in a creepy smile. He was enjoying the situation more than ever.

"What has she done to you?" her voice came out a shaky but still strong. "Why did you kill her?"

"I killed her because _it makes me feel good_."

"She was innocent!"

"To hell with that!" he shouted.

"Why are you doing this?"

He didn't answer, he just gave it a oblique smile and started walking towards the edge of the crag.

"Greg!" she yelled, but he ignored her.

Sarah ran as fast as she could, going over the woman with one single glance, trying to reach him before he could do anything stupid.

Unfortunately, she was too slow. The sand slowed her down, and by the time she was standing there, looking down to the ocean, his body had already disappeared in the dark water. She knelt down and covered her face, hopefully waiting for a head or a hand to appear, but it didn't. One moment he was standing there, just a few meters away from her, not he had completely vanished right before her eyes. Sarah felt tears rolling down her cheeks. It all had happened so fast that it was hard to process. She was standing on the edge of a huge crag with a dead woman behind her and her friend slowly drowning somewhere in the water below her. Shaking, she stood up very carefully and walked back to the woman. There was no hope. There never was. Sarah picked up the body on the sand and put it in the back of the truck, covering it with a cloth. She entered the truck and drove slowly to the police station in Las Venturas, all the time with the woman in the back, lying stiffly under the cloth. She parked it in the parking lot of the station and dragged herself in. The men all looked at her, but she just went by them like shadows. To the woman sitting behind a desk in the middle of the lobby she said she needed to speak to an officer.

"Is there any kind of trouble?" she asked with a stupid smile.

"Yes. I need to talk about it _privately._"

"Excuse me for a second."

Sarah sat down on one of the couches in the lobby, feeling more shaken then really tired. She saw the woman call one tall guy and say something to him in a low voice, and then point at her. The cop then nodded and walked to where she was sitting. Sarah raised her eyes to the man and tried to stand up.

"Hello" the officer greeted.

"Look, I need you to come outside with me."

"Not before you tell me why."

Sarah bit her lower lip. How could she make him believe her?

"Sir, I'll tell you exactly what happened. You won't believe me, you'll say I'm nuts, but it's the truth. Please, believe me."

She made a short pause to breathe and then she continued.

"There's a dead body of a woman in the back of my truck."

His expression didn't change and that made her feel a little uncomfortable.

"Why is there a dead body in the back of your truck?"

"I swear I didn't kill her. Look…"

She couldn't put what she wanted to say in words.

"My friend… It wasn't him, he was kind of possessed or something, I don't know… He killed her with a knife and then threw himself off the cliff. He's also dead by now, his body is in the ocean…"

"Wait a minute. You're telling me that you saw your friend kill a woman and then kill himself… and then you brought the body of the woman in the back of your truck to the police station?"

"Yes! I didn't know what to do with it and I couldn't leave it in the middle of the desert…"

"The middle of the desert?" he interrupted her. Now his expression was a little more serious.

"Yes, in Bone County, the ghost town. Next to the Sherman Dam."

"Lady, how did you know your friend was there with that woman? Were you taken with him?"

"No, I went there because I woke up this morning and he wasn't there. Look, officer, this is the hardest part to believe. I photograph for a local magazine and I had to go there to do some photos, in the ghost town. Since then, my friend has never been the same again. He changed. And this morning, when I woke up alone in the apartment, I knew where he was and probably what he was doing. I couldn't save her, I couldn't save him…"

"Why didn't you call the police if you knew where he was and what he was doing?"

He was starting to annoy her with all those questions. Couldn't he just follow her to the truck and then to the ghost town so she could prove she was right? As the conversation went on and on it only seemed that he believed less and less in her words. That's when she realized that, for him, she was just another crazy woman who had imagined things and now was giving him a hard time. She started to imagine: even if he followed her, if he saw the body and the place and after two hours of wasted talk he would only imagine that she had done it herself, since there was no prove that there had been another person. She suddenly stopped talking. There was no reason to continue; the officer had crossed his arms and was doing more questions and getting less reasonable answers. Sarah sighed. It had been a stupid idea. She hadn't thought about it. With all of those things happening so fast, she had completely lost her common sense and had just run to a safe place with no concrete idea in her head.

"You know what?" she cut off her "crazy" talking.

"What?"

"I'm so stupid. It was all a dream. I'm sorry. My shrink said this could happen, I'm just too damn stupid to stop it. I'm so sorry I wasted your time while you could be helping someone who really needs. I'm gonna go now."

Sarah started walking to the door when the officer called her back.

"Ma'am, lemme ask you just one last question" he said.

She agreed.

"Can I see your truck?"

Her blood ran cold.

"I… I…"

Now what you're gonna say, idiot? You got a dead body in the back of your truck and an officer asking you to see it, only because you _told him to._ She couldn't deny it, though, because then he would be sure something wrong was going on.

"S-sure."

She walked towards the truck with the officer behind her, her heart beating faster as she tried to find a way to get out of that one.

She led him to the truck and indicated it with a head movement. He surrounded it, looking inside, and finally moving to the back.

"May I ask you what's under this cloth?" he pointed it with a finger.

"J-just a few constru-truction st-stuff from my friend."

"I see… Mind if I take a look?"

She didn't answer and bit her lip again. He was going to find out and start to make questions again. Her body had started to shiver again.

"Go ahead…"

When he pulled off the cloth, there was no dead woman. There was only the construction stuff she'd made up. The man took a look at it and then covered it back again. He went back to where she stood and tapped her in the back saying:

"Have a nice day, ma'am. And watch the road if you leave Las Venturas."

"Sure" she answered weakly.

A strong headache hit her as she entered the truck and drove back to her apartment. Her brain was weak and couldn't process everything that had happened in just a short period of time. The bad feeling. Greg. Greg killing a woman. Greg throwing himself down the edge of a crag. The woman with the bleeding neck. The officer. The disappearing. It all came down to that photo she'd taken. It was all in there. If she could only get rid of it…

Sarah didn't even bother to park the truck in the garage of the building. She ran up to her apartment, picked up her camera and the photo that was strangely lying on her table and ran back to the truck. With that, she drove to the ghost town. The photo was in her hand, and this time it was static, but it had changed again. "HELP ME" was written in red over the photo. It wasn't over it, it was _in_ it. It was part of the picture. No surprise.

She went back there, hoping this was the last time she would do it.

In the truck she found a lighter, Greg's old lighter. With that, the camera and the photo in her hands, she went to the edge of the crag once again and set the picture on fire. Then she took almost one hundred photos of the same place. Then, she took it all and threw it in the water: the camera, the ashes of the photo, the lighter, everything. She wanted to get rid of all. Perhaps that way she could be free of it before she got killed too.

She sat there. It seemed that everything she had had just disappeared, vanished in front of her eyes. Her best friend, her camera, everything had fallen apart those last days. And it all just started with that stupid photo. She no longer wanted to work for that magazine anymore. No, perhaps she would get a job at the newspaper and there would be no more strange places and stupid theories. No more curses, no more murders.

As she sat there, enjoying the view, letting the wind caress her face and her hair, tears started to roll down her cheeks once again. It was one of those moments when you realize you're nothing more than just a tiny piece of a huge puzzle, and even though you connect a bunch of other pieces together, it doesn't really matter if you get lost, because you're so small that it won't make a difference on the overall picture. That just sucked, because life shouldn't be that way, it shouldn't be so fragile.

She would never understand why those things happened. Perhaps she wouldn't even remember it later. It was just going to be another blank space.

Suddenly she felt so tired, like she hadn't slept in days. Her eyes began to close and she decided to lie down and rest. She fell asleep so quickly, so softly… The sands of the desert turned into the sheets of her bed; the atmosphere around her became cooler and the noises changed. She was somewhere else.

Sarah opened her eyes. She was in her bedroom, in her apartment. It was like it had been a few days ago, before all that mess and then the "clean-up" Greg had given it.

There were sounds and movement beyond her door, probably Greg making breakfast for himself. No, that's not possible. Greg is dead. You saw him dying.

She threw her blankets all over the floor and ran to the kitchen, not caring about her messy hair and pajamas.

He was standing by the sink with a knife in his hands, singing along with the radio, as he did everyday when he woke up before her. She stood by the door with a confused expression, looking at him. Greg realized she was there and stopped singing, giving her a full look and then saying: "Don't worry, it's only nine o'clock yet. You can get changed."

Sarah didn't have a clue of what was happening, and she didn't know what to do next. Her head was a complete mess, her body felt tired and she had no idea of what day it was. Still, she had to do something.

"Greg…" she started. He turned around to face her and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"What?"

"What day is it?"

He frowned.

"April 29th. Why?"

Her chin dropped.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, why? Sarah, is everything alright?"

She moved closer to him and touched his arm with her fingers. They moved up to his face and that moment all she wanted to do was to hug him, it didn't matter how weird it was.

Greg let Sarah wrap her arms around his neck and then put the knife down and hugged her back, not understanding a thing. They stood there for more than thirty seconds, and when she finally let him go he held her close and asked her what was going on.

"I don't know" she said, looking at his chest to avoid looking in his eyes. "I don't know if it was some sort of dream or nightmare, I just know that it was horrible."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

She nodded

"I remember waking up today and going to the ghost town and taking pictures and then everything started to change. There was a photo that changed and you weren't the same anymore… I just know that in the end you killed a woman and jumped off the cliff."

"What a crazy nightmare."

"It wasn't a nightmare" she interrupted. "It was real. Greg, I remember every single detail. I lived all those days and then I came back. I don't know if God's given me a second chance or shown me what's about to happen, I got no idea, but Greg… That was no nightmare."

He saw the grief in her eyes and decided it was the best to bring her head closer to his chest while his caressed her hair with one hand.

Don't cry, she said to herself. You've cried enough, don't cry again.

"Look, do you want to stay home today?" he asked after she let him go and went to the fridge to get something to eat.

"No, I have to go there and work."

"You can say you were not feeling too good."

"I am…"

She got a piece of cake from the fridge and went back to where Greg was.

"I just want you to be with me today. I know I sound like a five-years old, but I want to stay with you."

"Okay" he said after a moment.

She smiled. Thank God he didn't laugh or think she was a frightened baby.

"It will be alright."

He pulled her with one arm and kissed her on the cheek and then disappeared through the door.

Sarah leaned her hip against the sink and took a deep breath. Everything was fine, after all. That had just been a bad dream, a bad experience, perhaps a warning from God. It didn't matter now, everything was back to normal, Greg was there and she could go on with her life. It had all been just another bad dream.

_Let me just say I've been writting this story for too long and I haven't revised it at all. I got kind of lost and I didn't follow a straight line to write this one, I guess I just wanted to finish it soon enough... Anyway, enjoy it. If you don't, please don't tell me._


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